There, back against the wall, something glinted in gold. Holmes seized it and examined it with his lens, then handed both to me. It was a simple gold ring, in the shape of an arrow, looped in on itself. ‘It’s a Woodman ring,’ he said. ‘Freddie’s – the one he mentioned. I am surprised she left it when she fled.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t flee but was abducted from this room?’ I offered. ‘You did say earlier that something did not feel right here. Could there be something in plain sight, something we have missed?’
‘I do not think she was abducted from here, Watson. Even the Cambridge police – or at the very least, her father – would have noticed obvious signs of a fight or a disturbance. I wager Wyndham found nothing telling. I believe she packed up her most treasured possessions and fled from this room of her own accord. Nevertheless, we do not have the whole story.’
Holmes stood in front of the window, scanning the room. He drew back the sheer linen curtains only a sliver and stared down into the street. ‘It does not look like anyone could have climbed out this way. Not without a ladder or a convenient tree.’ He let the curtains fall back across the window, and the evening sun glowed through them. Holmes moved to the centre of the room and turned slowly in place. ‘But there is something here. I can feel it.’
‘Wyndham must have been in a hurry. Everything has been disturbed,’ I said.
‘Or angry, yes.’ He paused, then his face lit up. ‘Everything except this.’
He pointed to an innocuous painting, an unimpressive seascape on the wall opposite the sofa, hanging next to the door. In contrast to the disarray of the rest of the room, it hung straight and undisturbed.
Holmes took down the painting and examined the back. ‘Watson, we are in luck!’ he cried.
He removed an envelope that was fastened to the frame. Eagerly he opened it. ‘Pawnshop receipts!’ he said, flipping through them. ‘Her father was right! But she managed to keep it a secret from him, even after death. Watson, Dillie had been pawning off her mother’s – or someone’s – jewellery.’ He paused and looked up. ‘Saving, no doubt, for this moment.’
‘To do what?’
‘To buy her freedom. I would be willing to wager that Miss Wyndham pawned her two engagement rings just before she was killed. Or perhaps was on her way to do so. And this would explain why she accepted rings from both Eden-Summers and Leo Vitale.’
‘Then she did not intend to marry either.’
‘I would theorize not.’
‘Could there have been a third person with whom she planned to leave? Like Madame Borelli and her scientist fellow?’
One of the low stools we had sat on near the door to put Dillie at her ease had been upended. Holmes turned it upright and sat down, the receipts in his hand. He closed his eyes. ‘I need to think.’
The room was nearly dark. I found a gaslit sconce and lit it, and the room was immediately bathed in a warm light.
‘What pawnshop?’ I asked.
‘Piotr Flan. Here is the address.’ He handed me the receipts. As I moved towards the light to look at them, the door flew open and to our surprise in burst Freddie Eden-Summers. He took us both in and frowned in confusion.
‘What are you two doing here?’
‘My question for you, Mr Eden-Summers,’ said Holmes, on his feet.
‘This was Dillie’s private room,’ said Eden-Summers.
‘Yes, but no longer. Have you come to retrieve something? A ring perhaps?’ said Holmes.
The boy stammered, backed up. ‘Well, I thought perhaps …’
I held up the golden circle ring and stepped forward. ‘This one, by chance?’
Freddie Eden-Summers squinted at the ring from across the room. ‘Oh, that one. I gave her that a month ago. My Woodman ring. I was hoping for the engagement ring. But give it to me—’
The young man stepped towards me into the glow of the lamplight near me on the wall. The next moment has been frozen in my memory, with the movements slowed, bathed in greenish-golden light, as though underwater.
The soft gaslight illuminated Eden-Summers’ pale, handsome face, and I noticed the blond peach fuzz which covered his cheeks and the straw colour of his eyelashes. The ring in my hand gleamed.
To one side, Sherlock Holmes had his eyes pinned on Eden-Summers. That is the last thing that I remember, for at that moment there was the splinter of glass and the slight huff of tearing fabric, and I felt a searing white-hot blade pass into my right thigh.
I heard a cry of agony which must have been my own.
And then I was on the floor with Eden-Summers leaning over me. He was staring at my thigh.
‘The little minx!’ he exclaimed.
What was he talking about? The pain in my leg was excruciating. I groaned and tried to sit up to see what had happened.
Holmes elbowed the boy aside and peered down at me.
‘Watson, be still. You have been shot! Eden-Summers, go for a doctor!’
I craned my neck to see the boy at the window, staring down at the courtyard. ‘Better yet, I’ll get a cab and take you there! I know just the man,’ he cried, and ran from the room.
‘Have a care!’ cried Holmes.
‘She will not try again,’ said the young man, his voice disappearing down the hall.
Holmes leaned down to peer at me, a worried expression on his face. Pain made my eyes water and my head swim.
‘Holmes …’ I said. ‘What …?’
‘You were shot with an arrow. No, keep your hand away.’
‘What? Pull it out!’ I cried, trying to reach it.
‘No, Watson!’ he said, stopping my hand with his own. ‘Lie back. As a doctor, you know better. Pull it out and you could bleed to death!’
In retrospect, of course I did know this, but for the life of me I could not summon the reason at that moment.
I gritted my teeth. ‘Who on earth would shoot me?’
‘The target was more likely Mr Eden-Summers.’
‘How? Who—’
‘Come, Watson! Who is an archer with reason to wish harm to that young man? Think!’
I was spared coming up with a retort, for at that moment I passed out.
CHAPTER 34
Just a Bodkin
I came round blearily in what must have been a doctor’s surgery. A small, serious man of about forty with bright red cheeks was bent over me, busily tugging at something. I do recall that my right leg was numbed and felt like a gigantic loaf of bread and nothing to do with me, although somehow attached. The smell of carbolic acid filled the room. He brought up a pair of forceps and leaned in. I felt a dull pulling and could hear him snipping at sutures.
‘My … uh …’ In a haze, I located in my mind the spot on my leg which was receiving the attention. ‘The … the femoral artery?’ I mumbled.
The diminutive surgeon looked down at me over a pair of silver reading glasses. His round face and sharp brown eyes brought to mind a small bear. I noted a carefully groomed and waxed moustache, with the ends precisely turned up in matching curls. Meticulous was precisely the trait one would wish for in a surgeon.
‘Awake, are ye? You’re a doctor, then, tae be askin’ about that?’ said the surgeon. A Highland accent. Scottish medical training, another good sign. ‘Missed the artery. You were lucky.’
‘Yes. Watson here was an army surgeon,’ said Holmes. ‘How soon can you have him on his feet, Doctor?’
‘Macready is the name,’ the surgeon said pleasantly to me. He then looked up at Holmes, who loomed nearby. He frowned. ‘Stand back, sir, you are dreadfully underfoot.’
Holmes was taken back at a phrase I’d heard him rudely bark at our own dear Mrs Hudson, but he complied, disappearing from my view.
‘What is the extent of the wound, Doctor?’ I asked.
‘Mr Eden-Summers brought you to the right place. Arrow wounds are my speciality. Get little call for it, now. Arrow missed the femoral by less than an inch. As I said, you were very, very lucky.’
Holmes’s voice floated over as he held up the bloody arrowhead so that I could see it. ‘Hmm, bodkin point! Small favours, Watson.’
‘Indeed. I used one of my smallest tubes to retract it with minimal damage,’ said Macready. ‘You’ll appreciate that, Doctor Watson.’
‘Not as bad as a broadhead, though. You are lucky, my friend,’ continued Holmes. ‘Bodkins have much smaller ears.’ At my puzzled look, he added. ‘Shoulders. Barbs. The parts that tear the flesh when pulled out.’
Macready looked up from his work. ‘Get back from there!’ Holmes disappeared again. ‘You are an archer, then?’
‘Formerly,’ said Holmes.
‘Hit the adductor longus?’ I asked.
‘Yes. It could have been much worse,’ said Macready.
‘Meaning what?’ asked Holmes.
‘It means he should pass on any morris dancing for the immediate future,’ said the surgeon. ‘That muscle moves the leg from side to side.’
‘How soon for normal walking, Doctor?’ asked Holmes.
‘And what is your hurry in that?’ replied Dr Macready, coldly. ‘Stand further back, over there, would you? What is your relationship to this man, might I ask?’
‘I am Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, here in Cambridge on a case. This is my friend and colleague Dr John Watson.’
‘Yes, yes, army surgeon, you said. How does a medical colleague help a detective?’ When neither of us answered, he looked down at me. ‘Now … think of something else while I sew this up.’
‘Aaah!’ I distracted myself with Holmes’s exploits. ‘Eh … so … how did you get out of gaol, Holmes?’
The surgeon stopped what he was doing and reappraised my friend. ‘Do I have a criminal in my midst? Put that down, I say, and go and sit over there by the door. You are a damnable distraction, man!’
I craned my neck to see Holmes wiping off the bloody arrow tip with his handkerchief. He pulled off the tip from the arrow shaft and pocketed it.
‘Evidence,’ he said with a smile.
Macready shook his head.
‘It is true. I do need to be back on my feet shortly,’ I said. ‘How much do I risk by activity, please?’
‘Ach, you put me in mind of a college footballer whose lady love shot him in the leg accidentally. He was out dancing the following week, then took half a year to recover.’
‘No dancing, I promise.’
‘Well … I’ll patch you up good. You’ll be as well as you choose to treat yourself, Doctor. ’Twere me, I’d catch up on my reading and run about with this gaolbird much less than I’m guessing you might.’
‘Can you give him something for the pain – something that will not fog his brain?’ asked Holmes.
‘You have need of my brain?’ I almost laughed. ‘Ow! The anaesthetic is wearing off, Doctor.’
‘I know. Almost finished. Who shot you, man?’
‘I am not sure—’
‘Oh, come, Watson, you know exactly who did this,’ said my friend.
‘Well, I hope he is brought to justice,’ said the surgeon.
‘She,’ said Holmes. ‘And I doubt it. Although Eden-Summers is reporting this to her father as we speak.’
She? I closed my eyes and lay back. Of course. ‘Atalanta Wyndham,’ I said.
‘She shot you through the curtain, Watson. I believe she mistook your silhouette for Freddie’s. He was in the room with you, remember?’
‘But I thought she had feelings for Freddie?’
‘Watson, think! A few days ago he announced his engagement to her sister. Passion is like an alternating current. Love in one direction, and when reversed, equally strong hatred.’
‘It sounds as though you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, Doctor,’ said the surgeon.
A groan escaped me as the dull ache grew into something keener and more difficult to ignore. I felt a sharp prick and looked down to see the surgeon injecting something near the bandaged wound.
‘I am giving you a little more local anaesthetic, Doctor. Short term, however.’
‘Can you not give him something else for later? Something that will not dull his brain?’ asked Holmes.
‘You ask me again?’ Macready looked up and stared hard at Holmes. ‘Like a little cocaine, for instance? An injectible solution?’
‘Yes.’ Holmes said. ‘For later?’
The surgeon smiled at him. ‘May I have a look at your arm?’
‘Mine? Certainly not!’
The doctor looked down at me. ‘Dr Watson, I will leave this to you.’
I supposed Holmes’s habit was evident to the astute medical man. ‘Give me some now, but I’ll do without later,’ said I.
‘All right then.’
He filled another syringe, tied off my arm and injected the liquid into a vein. ‘This is a three per cent solution of cocaine. It will tide you past the local. But now you must be very careful. Cocaine makes some feel invincible.’
I was about to reply when a wave of warmth and good will swept over me. I suddenly knew that everything would be absolutely, perfectly, fantastically all right. I sat up eagerly.
Holmes gripped my shoulder. ‘We have work to do, Watson. On your feet.’
‘Work? It’s nearly midnight! This man needs rest,’ said Dr Macready.
I swung my legs off the table, eager to depart.
‘Careful!’ cried Dr Macready, stepping between us. ‘Slow down!’
With the doctor’s help, I gingerly set my feet on the floor.
Holmes was halfway out of the door and turned back impatiently. ‘Come on, Watson!’
‘Your observation powers fail you!’ I found myself shouting. ‘I’ll need my trousers first!’
CHAPTER 35
The Pawnshop
Just outside the doctor’s office, we looked about for a cab to convey us to Holmes’s next destination: Piotr Flan’s pawnshop, which was on the far outskirts of town. I must have been out for some time at Dr Macready’s for it was indeed midnight, and at that moment I was feeling no pain. Darkness engulfed the city and it had begun to rain in great pelting drops. No cabs were to be found.
When I noticed that we were standing somewhat near the police station, I suggested to Holmes that we be less visible. He turned into an alleyway and in five minutes, we were lost.
‘The map, Watson?’
I no longer had it with me. We would have to ask for help. The rain grew into a downpour, but luck was with us. Or in reality, luck had been following us. Upon exiting an alley near the Round Church, we came upon Polly. We had not seen her since Dillie’s murder. She was breathless, pale and – as we were – dripping wet.
‘Mr ’Olmes! Dr Watson! I been trying to flag you. I was outside the Cross and Anchor when you left with an arrow in Doctor Watson, and I tagged on back of that cab and waited for you outside the surgery. But you left so fast. I wants to help you, any way I can. For Miss Dillie. Please, can I help?’
‘Do you know the way to Piotr Flan’s pawnshop?’
‘Yes, I knows it. Follow me. It’s quite far.’
‘Can you make it, Watson?’
I nodded. I was feeling no pain.
‘Then you pawned items for Miss Wyndham?’ asked Holmes as we hurried through the streets.
‘No. I always waited outside. This way.’
We arrived at Piotr Flan’s pawnshop at one in the morning. Thanks to Macready’s cocaine, I felt nothing of my wound, but I knew this long walk would do me no good. Of course, the shop was closed and dark, but Holmes rang the bell repeatedly.
‘Holmes, we will have to wait until morning!’ I said, but he persisted.
‘Chances are he lives upstairs,’ said Holmes. ‘If not …’
Polly eyed the large padlock on the grating that had been placed in front of the door and front window of the shop. She removed a lockpick from her sleeve. ‘I could maybe unlock this,’ she said.
Holmes and I turned to her in surprise. I wondered briefly if everyone bu
t me had mastered this skill. But before she could begin, a small light appeared in the back of the shop. A grizzled old man approached, peering at us owl-like from the interior, directing his lantern to shine on our faces. He had a strange corona of corkscrew hair that stuck out in all directions from an ill-fitting nightcap and an expression of what I imagined was permanent distrust on his lined visage.
He did not look inclined to open up. Polly put her lockpick away.
‘Vat you vant?’ he shouted, barely audible through the closed and locked door.
From his waistcoat, Holmes unclipped his gold watch, a high-quality timepiece which I had long admired, and held it up with what appeared to be a desperate and conciliatory smile.
Soon we faced Piotr Flan across a glass and mahogany counter filled with jewelled and gilded items. He had lit several lights and the small shop was now almost bright as daylight. His wife, in her nightdress and dressing gown, had come down to join him, apparently with the explicit purpose of keeping a sharp watch on Polly and me during the transaction. I felt a little like a rabbit in hawk territory. The woman was more than ready to pounce, and she carried a battered policeman’s truncheon in stark contrast with her flowered nightclothes.
‘All right then, you had better make this vorth my vile,’ said the man, with an accent I could not identify.
Flan spread out a large velvet cloth and tapped it, inviting Holmes to lay out his treasure. Polly began to wander through the small shop and the pawnbroker’s wife followed close on her heels. ‘Touch nuffink,’ the woman growled in a distinctly Cockney accent, ‘if ye know what’s good for yer.’
‘Just looking,’ said Polly. ‘No trouble, ma’am.’
‘Nuffink, hear me?’ the woman repeated, slightly jiggling the stick at her side.
Holmes laid the watch out on the velvet cloth. The pawnbroker took out a loupe and leaned in to examine it.
‘Got it! Both of ’em!’ cried Polly from across the room.
Holmes looked up, scooped up his watch and crossed over to Polly. I followed. She pointed to a locked case in which were a wide variety of jewelled rings. ‘Those two,’ said she. ‘The big diamond one, there, with the two emeralds – that’s from Mr Eden-Summers. And the littler one with the sapphire is Mr Vitale’s.’
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